It's Not about the Jeep
by Evil Cosmic Triplets
Summary: Stiles is avoiding Derek. Derek is stalking Stiles.


**Disclaimer:** I do not own the characters of this work of fiction, and no profit is being made through this, monetary or otherwise.

**A/N:** Turned out a little less fluffy than what I had first thought it would be. Thank you animegril1129, and kbeto as well.

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"Melts in your mouth, not in your hand," Stiles sings at the top of his lungs, even though he's eating chocolate chips and not m&m's, and he wonders if an m&m's spokesperson is going to pop out from behind a tree and sue him for using their catchphrase.

What does, or rather who does, pop out from behind a tree is not a spokesperson, or at least Stiles doesn't think that Derek Hale is a spokesperson, though, well, technically he could be his very own spokesperson, like maybe for some company called: 'Werewolves of America,' or 'Alpha, Beta & Omega'. He's never been good at naming things. Hell, his entire family is pretty bad at naming things, hence his nickname, Stiles. And that's not even particularly original, because, well, it's just a shorter version of his rather lengthy last name - Stilinski - yet another bad name choice in a whole slew of bad choices.

"Stiles."

Derek stalks up next to Stiles and the two walk together down the sidewalk for a good fifty feet before Stiles turns to the werewolf and acknowledges his presence with a brief, heated glance. Stiles resumes his quick pace, because his walk home from school is long, and if he slows down, he knows that he will probably stop altogether, and he's almost there. Well, if one can consider a half a mile left to go, almost there.

"Stiles, stop."

Derek tugs at Stiles' jacket sleeve, and Stiles considers just shrugging out of it and leaving the jacket behind in Derek's hand, like a snake sloughing its skin. He doesn't, but only because it's late fall, and the weather is a little on the chilly side.

"Stiles."

Derek's voice is like sandpaper across a rough surface, and it grates on Stiles' nerves, which are already raw.

"Stop."

Another tug and Stiles wrenches his arm away from the wolf's grasp, and he quickens his steps, now almost jogging.

"Please."

Stiles' footsteps falter and his heart skips a beat, and then another, but he doesn't stop his forward momentum, because his feet are still responding to his first memo, which was: 'Get away from Derek Hale as fast as you can; we're mad at him.'

"What do you want, Derek?" Stiles decides to break his vow of silence.

Derek is, if nothing else, persistent, and has been, no pun intended, hounding Stiles since last Tuesday, okay, so maybe the pun was a little on the intentional side. Puns are one of the few things that Stiles still has right now, and they're a small comfort at best.

"To apologize."

And that's when Stiles' feet simply stop working, and his brain decides to override the protocol he's been trying to instill in it since a week ago, yesterday, and he turns to face the man, the wolf, the Alpha, whom he's been steadfastly avoiding. Derek's eyes are sunken, and his cheeks are hollowed, like he's lost weight in the short amount of time that Stiles has paid any attention to him - a week and a day. It's alarming, but Stiles hardens his heart and his resolve, and faces the werewolf with a cold glare, or at least he hopes that his eyes are communicating every bit of anger and disdain that he feels for the man right now.

"You wrecked my jeep," Stiles says, and his heart thumps heavily in his chest because his voice is every bit as poisonous as he wanted it to be, but it doesn't make him feel any better. If anything, the way that Derek's face falls makes him lose some of his earlier resolve.

"I know, and I'm sorry," Derek says, "I've been trying to talk to you, but..."

"You mean that you've been stalking me," Stiles cuts in, apparently his venomous mouth hasn't yet caught up with the new orders that he's given his brain, "trying to lure me into your car, which happens to be in mint condition, while my jeep is sitting in a junkyard gathering dust and rusting even as we speak. I don't want to talk to you. Not now, not ever again. All you do is hurt me, the people and the things I love."

"I'm sorry," Derek repeats, and he hangs his head. "I'll replace the jeep."

"You're stupid if you think this is only about my jeep," Stiles says, and Derek's head jerks up. "This is about you and..." Stiles gestures between them, "and whatever this...is. One minute you're baring your teeth at my throat, threatening to make me into dog chow, and the next, you're..."

"I'm what?" Derek asks when the silence lingers too long between them, his green eyes hold something that looks an awful lot like hope.

"The next, you're saving my life, and it's almost like you care, but you can't because you're a mighty Alpha werewolf, and I'm just, Stiles, a lonely, non-supernaturally-enhanced human. It isn't about the jeep, as much as I miss her," Stiles says, hoping that the tone of his voice conveys some of what it is that he's trying to say between the lines, because he doesn't really want to have to spell it out for Derek.

"I wasn't in any real danger," Derek says quietly. He inches toward Stiles and places a hand on his arm. "You know, supernatural healing and all."

"You could have died," Stiles says, equally as quiet. "It isn't about the jeep, Derek. Jeeps can be replaced. You can't. You and Scott and Erica and Boyd and Isaac," Stiles runs a hand through his stubble, "you aren't replaceable. None of you are replaceable."

Completely outside of his will, his brain, always on overdrive, and his body, apparently getting the memo long before conscious thought has even begun to register, act of mutual accord, and he doesn't even know what he's doing, but his hands are on either side of Derek's face, and he's leaning in, even as he's pulling the man forward, and then, just like that, they're kissing. Derek stiffens at first, but soon it's as if something inside of him has been released, and then they're really kissing - tongue and teeth and fingers digging into flesh along the jawline.

When it ends, the both of them pulling back and gasping for air as though starved for oxygen, they stare at each other for a good, long while.

"You're irreplaceable," Stiles says through lips numb and heated from the kiss, "my avoiding you wasn't about the jeep, Derek. I can't," Stiles pauses and takes in a shuddering breath, he shakes his head, "won't be involved with someone who thinks that his life is of less value than a crappy, old jeep."

Stiles absentmindedly wipes at tears which have fallen of their own accord, and, though he wants to, he doesn't resist when Derek wraps his arms around him and pulls him close. Instead, he steals comfort and warmth from the wolf, leaning into the embrace, and, somewhere along the way, his brain decides to forego the, 'stay-far-far-away-from-Derek-protocol' that he's been trying to establish for the past week, and decides that a new protocol is in order, along the lines of: 'never-let-him-go-ever'.

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